A video on YouTube falsely claims that President Xi Jinping ordered all Chinese ships patrolling the West Philippine Sea (WPS) to retreat after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
On April 27, a YouTube channel published the untrue four-minute video that bore this headline:
“CHINA IYAK SURRENDER NA! PAPAATRASIN NA LAHAT NG BARKO! PINAPAUWI NA LAHAT NI XI WALANG MATITIRA UWI
(China sobs, surrenders! Will order all its ships to retreat! Xi is making them all return).”
The video’s thumbnail includes the following text:
“GRABI (sic) NAKAKA GULAT ITO. CHINA SUKO NA DI NA PAPALAG. LAHAT NG BARKO PAPAATRASIN NA. HALA CHINA SUMURRENDER NA (This is shocking. China gives up and will not retaliate. All ships will retreat. China has surrendered)”
The video was uploaded a day after Blinken and Xi met in Beijing on April 26 to discuss various issues in an effort to deepen the relationship between their countries. It was posted with the narrator playing a short subtitled clip of the Chinese leader saying he “proposed to surrender respectfully”. This is wrong.
In the original video published by Chinese media CCTV Video News Agency, and based on the statement carried by the official website of the U.S. State Department, Xi “proposed mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and willing cooperation to be the three overarching principles” of China’s relationship with the United States.
The Chinese president never said anything about retreating from the WPS during his meeting with Blinken.
Another evidence put forward by the video narrator that China was pulling back was the statement of the Armed Forces of the Philippines that they have not detected Chinese presence during the trilateral drills on the WPS held last week.
This lacks context. Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad, Navy spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, said in a media press briefing last week that this is expected behavior because “historically the illegal, unprovoked, uncalled for actions of China will only be to [the] Philippines.”
Just yesterday, a Chinese-flagged research vessel was spotted by the AFP sailing near Viga, Catanduanes.
YouTube channel Melvs Castle (created on Dec. 2, 2011) published the false video, garnering over 66,000 views, 3,400 interactions and potentially reaching up to 251,000 YouTube users.
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